If 2 weeks ago was all about the crazy number of goals, then last weekend was all about one goal in particular:

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney said his wonder overhead strike that secured a 2-1 derby win over Manchester City was the best of his career. United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was gushing in his praise for Rooney’s goal, calling it the best he has seen at Old Trafford. “It was stunning,” he said. “Unbelievable. We’ve had some fantastic goals here but in terms of execution, you’ll never see that.”

There were also some incredible displays by the teams in Europe with both Tottenham and Arsenal recording memorable wins over AC Milan and Barcelona respectively.

The Tottenham game was insanely close and just 1 nil up with 1 minute to go, lets pick up the BBC reporting:

92mins: Unbelievable! AC Milan frontman Zlatan Ibrahimovc thinks he’s snatched a dramatic equaliser at the very death with a brilliant overhead kick… but the official’s flag is raised for a foul on Michael Dawson in the box. It’s a great decision, too. What drama.

93mins: FULL-TIME AC Milan 0-1 Tottenham

94mins: Wowzers. AC Milan midfielder Gennaro Gattuso has gone mad. The Italian greets the final whistle by marching straight over to assistant Tottenham coach Joe Jordan and head-butting him. Incredible. The two benches clash as a result as Gattuso is pulled away, but still he tries to get at the Tottenham bench. Absolutely staggering. What’s the Italian for bad loser?

Let’s join the Arsenal game with just 3 minutes to go as they lead 2 – 1:

87mins: And then out of nowhere Barcelona threaten an equaliser, Lionel Messi laying Dani Alves in on the right and the Brazilian’s slid effort kept out by Wojciech Szszesny. What a game.

88mins: Barcelona are pressing now… heavily…

90mins: Two minutes of injury time at the Emirates.

92mins: Is that handball? Arsenal substitute Andrey Arshavin might just have got away with one there as the ball strikes his arm in the box, but the referee waves play on… Dani Alves does play on and his square pass is almost forced home by Lionel Messi, but the Argentine’s shot is blocked.

92mins: FULL-TIME Arsenal 2-1 Barcelona

All great stuff and lots of points in our league – but I haven’t put the updated file online yet – suspense – but will let you know as soon as I do… I’ll leave you with a quote from Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp: “They lost their heads at the end there – they were rattled for sure – and I guess that’s a good sign. I know who I’d pick between Joe Jordan and Gennaro Gattuso anyway… Joe all night long. All night long.”

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

According to my sources… drama, intensity, change and travel will be the keywords for 2010. Unfortunately, world conflicts and disasters tend to feature during Tiger years also, so it won’t be a dull 12 months for anyone. The Year of the Tiger will bring far reaching changes for everyone. New inventions and incredible technological advances have a good chance of occurring. Of all the Chinese horoscope signs, this year is one to be active – seizing opportunities and making the most of our personal and very individual talents. Everything happens quickly and dramatically in a Tiger year – blink and you could miss an important chance of a lifetime!

Deep stuff, I think you’ll agree!!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, 2009 was massive too… Barack Obama became the American president, the world economy crashed like never before, Michael Jackson died, swine flu became a world health scare, the war in Afghanistan raged on, the Tiger Woods brand took a major hit, Twitter became a phenomenon…

An intense year all round.

And in the world of our fantasy football league, it has been much the same… teams have risen and fallen… the lines between luck, idiocracy and skill have blurred like never before… and the banter that makes it one of the greatest events of the year has eclipsed even the story of Lindsay Lohan breaking up with that Ronson girl.

This latest update includes two weekend of games and some mid week action, so it’s not surprising that there has been some big movement – with Dai Spesh quickest off the mark with 168 points (up 54 places), followed by Dave T, Emma G and Cameron B all over 150 points each. On the flip side it was a bad fortnight for Stacey with just 15 points (down 21 places) and also Baker, Jalal, Rhys and Danielle all scraping 30 points-ish.

Liz & Laura Crispie had a tough week down 26 places, as did Ian Graham. Leigh and Craig also had a poor run of form down over 20 places each. But it was a tale of two halves, as Matt J, Danielle R, Louise D and Chris J all climbed a healthy 30 ranks each.

So going into the New Year, it’s interesting to see that Lampard is the most chosen player (in 88 teams), closely followed by Stevie G (85) with a bit of a gap then down to Rooney (57), Owen (53) and Bent (52). The top scoring player is currently Drogba (190 points) but with a month out for the African Nations will he stay there? After him, its Rooney (155 points), Dunne (132 points) and Vermaelen (131 points).

But what it really comes down to are the value for money players, those little bargains that the select few have found, those wild cards that have come good. Interestingly the best value player at 74 points per £1million is someone called Craddock – who features in not a single team!! After him, its Johnson on 65p/£ (26 teams), Bowyer on 56p/£ (in just one team), Carr 51p/£ (again just one team) and Etherington 48p/£ (astonishingly also in just one team!!)

So I think I’ll leave it there for now and just wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Ho Ho Ho…

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

£6 goes to M Davey who was the October Manager of the Month with 270 points, closely followed by Jock with 244 and Cameron with 237.

£5 goes to Emily who climbed a massive 82 places in the month, closely followed by M Davey up 77 and Jock again up 76.

Since not a single person finished the month on a multiple of 100 and would therefore have claimed £1 each – for this month I have extended the prizes to those with a multiple of 10 but just 50p each – this means that all these jammy people have opened their account: Quirky, Fitzpatrick, J Cann, Wheeler (D), M Davey, Cameron, Caden Oestrich, Joanne S, James M, Andrew Edwards, A Kyle, Steven Williams, Nicolas Threasher, Tim Littler, Jake Alexander, Jon Griffiths, Nia Williams and Mat James!!!

At the top of the league we still have Luan but Andy G has climbed into second place pushing Anna and Joanne down a slot, whilst Tom Jones is up into 5th followed by Sibley in 6th whilst Michael and Cameron enter the top 10 at the expense of Keivan and Lyons.

Some of the mini battles that are going on look like this:

Marshall vs Edwards is too close to call at 537 vs 527
Lyons vs Brown vs Quirk is also hottening up at 566 vs 471 vs 538
Baber vs Jones vs Radford may be turning into a two horse race with 338 vs 528 vs 535
Scally vs Baker vs Else vs Stafford vs Dack looks like it has seen its first call for a medic with 533 vs 465 vs 553 vs 474 vs 258

We’ll cover some more inter league stories next week.

In addition to the normal prizes, there will also be a couple of fun competitions this month (with prizes) and all you have to do to enter is leave an answer to one or both of these questions on the website…

1) How many points will be scored in the final 5 International rugby games at the end of the month? (The games are France v New Zealand, Ireland v South Africa, Italy v Samoa, Scotland v Argentina, Wales v Australia and obviously all answers need to be submitted before match day which is the 28th!!!)

2) Name one of the items that you think will be in the Yahoo Top 10 Most Searched List on 1st December. Check out www.yahoo.co.uk (top right) to see the kind of things that Paris Hilton loving, Wayne Rooney worshipping, Royal Mail slagging people are looking for.

Ok that’s it for now. Let’s have some lunch.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

Again, it’s been a bit of a wait for this update as the International games got in the way – but the weekend saw normal service restored to the Premiership.

A late goal from Agbonlahor gave Villa a win away at Birmingham, whilst Fulham came from behind to beat Evertons early lead through Cahill. Diouf oponed the scoring for Blackburn during their 3 – 1 win over Wolves, whilst Benayoun fired off a hatrick during Liverpools 4 – 0 win over Burnley.

A six goal feast between Man City and Arsenal saw the likes of Van Persie, Bellamy, Adebyor and Wright-Phillips all score. A last minute goal from Cahill sealed a first win for Bolton away at Portsmouth, who still need to get off the mark.

Chelsea came from behind and needed a 4th minute of extra time goal from Malouda to continue their unbeaten start to the season. Spurs meanwhile lost their first of the season to Man U with an early bicycle kick goal from Defoe cancelled out by goals from Giggs, Anderson and Rooney. Wigan beat West Ham with Rodallega the only scorer.

In our league, (other than me) Tim Radford also had a good week with 72 points and up 43 places, as did Joanne Sheen, Dan Jones and Nathan Davies. Unfortunately this week saw two negative points movers in the form of Craig Robson and Adrian Till. Dark times indeed for these two managers.

In terms of positions, Chris Rawlings also had a good week, up 51 places – as did Jamie Keddle up 39 places. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and this week it was was Dave Heylings down 34 places who suffered the most.

It’s also time for everyone to pay… I don’t want everyone handing me five pound notes all over the place – as these never seem to make it to the bank – so instead can I ask that everyone do a quick transfer to me online. Details are:

Sort Code: 40 08 28
Account Number: 514 174 28
Please add your name in the reference so I know its from you and then I’ll mark you off.

I’ve also had a huge amount of feedback regarding transfers. And so here is how it’s going to work. As with previous seasons, each team will be allowed 4 transfers – which can be made at the end of any month – with effect from the start of the next. So feel free to start sending any transfer requests in and they will come in from the start of October.

Cheers

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

Click Here for Latest League Table

Our fun little league has gone from strangth to strength each year – but with 162 people last year, it looked like we had maxed out – but no, this year we have managed to reach 171 teams!!!

This first update actually consists of two updates – I did one after the first weekend – and another today once The Sun DreamTeam website was sorted out – so your “streak” will be based upon the movement between these two…

The early leaders all have the likes of Defoe (phenomenal hat-trick in one game alone), Rooney (3 goals) and Drogba (3 goals) but it is Dan Marshall who takes an early lead this season on 164 points – closely followed by Jo and myself.

Because it is such early days I won’t start mentioning everyone who’s gone up loads or down loads but I will share with you a few interesting statistics – all of which are available in the file.

Lampard and Gerrard were the two most popular players with 87 teams choosing each one. After that came Owen (75), Torres (51) and Arshavin (51).

The most popular teams that players were chosen from went likes this: Man U (286), Chelsea (276), Liverpool (220), Arsenal (144), Everton (116) and Fulham (115). Is this a sign of how the season will finish? Who can say?

The best value players at this early stage are Jensen (23 points per £1m), Shawcross (17 points per £1m), Johnson (13 points per £1m) and Carr (13 points per £1m). Who are they you might well say?

I think we’ll leave it there for now…

Remember to leave any banter on the site – that’s what it’s all about.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

(please note that when you open the League file – available online – you may see an eggtimer appear once you click an option – just be patient…)

There’s only word for today’s update – chunky!!

We’ve got points from last weeks action and the weekend league action all rolled into one.

With 79 people now over 1,000 points, with the likes of Stefan G getting 77 points in one week and with me rising 13 places following Rooneys return, you could say this puppy is going off.

I’ll let you look yourself and instead leave you with another little gem from the Vicar of Dibley…

Knock-knock..
Who’s there?
Interrupting sheep.
Interrupting she-
BAAA!

Hope everyone’s having a good week. ;o)
www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

A good weekend of sport with Hamilton winning the Chinese Grand Prize, Murrary taking his second Masters title and Tottenham continuing to show the kind of form you would normally need a pooper-scooper for. I’m sure any of us could be paid millions of pounds to lose 8 games on the trot but they did it with style on Sunday and had two players sent off and another knocked unconcious – leaving the pitch with an oxygen mask. Not only that – the injury was suffered during a collision with his own goalie. I just made £500 on that – thank you You’ve Been Framed.

Anyway it was an entertaining event elsewhere with Aresenal netting 3, Liverpool 3, Man U 4 and Chelsea 5 with goals from the likes of Kalou, Lampard, Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov, Kuyt, Van Persie and Walcott.

In our League – Sibley, Bickel and Edgerley all step up into the top 10 – with Alex, Stacey, Ricky, Rawlings and Dean all clocking up some 25+ position climbs whilst Lloydy did indeed “Dance with the devil in the pale moonlight” and came off worse – down 20 places.

In fairness though, football isn’t for everyone – so perhaps you should try watching or take part in one of the UK’s 10 weirdest sports – including wife carrying, cheese rolling and chess boxing. To learn more, please check out: http://www.weirdlevel.com/2008/10/10-weirdest-sports.html – I think you’ll agree there’s something for all tastes. Mine’s edam.

Game on.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

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Remember: the two fun competitions are underway for the month so go online and leave your suggestions. You’ve got to be in it to win it. No limit on entries. It’s all for fun.